Ian Brady's mental health advocate will not face charges

Jackie Powell was alleged to have a letter from Brady last year

Moors murderer Ian Brady's mental health advocate will not face charges over allegations she failed to disclose information about the location of one of his victims' remains.

Jackie Powell was arrested last year on suspicion of preventing the lawful burial of Brady's victim Keith Bennett.

The Crown Prosecution Service said no action would be taken against Ms Powell, of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.

Brady is being held at high security Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside.

Brady, now 74, and Myra Hindley murdered five children between 1963 and 1965 in Greater Manchester.

Keith Bennett is the only one of their victims never to be found.

'Insufficient evidence'

Ms Powell was arrested after she told a television documentary Brady had given her a sealed envelope to pass to Winnie Johnson, Keith's mother, in the event of Brady's death.

The letter was never found and Mrs Johnson died last August still not knowing where her son was buried.

John Dilworth, head of the CPS North West Complex Case Unit, said: "After careful consideration, we have decided that Ms Powell should not be charged, as it cannot be established that she knew the contents of the letter referred to, that the letter in question existed or what information it might have contained.

"The only evidence of the letter's existence was in comments given by Ms Powell to an interviewer and she stated only that she believed it may contain information about Keith Bennett.

"Even if it could be proved that this letter existed, there is insufficient evidence to prove that she genuinely believed it contained the information in question."

Brady has always refused to reveal the location of Keith Bennett's body

Mr Dilworth said the CPS had written to Keith Bennett's brother to explain the decision and have offered a meeting to discuss it.

Martin Bottomley, head of investigative review in Greater Manchester Police's major and cold case crime unit, said: "As soon as we were made aware of the existence of this alleged letter, we made exhaustive attempts to obtain it to establish whether or not its contents would assist us in finding Keith's body.

"That resulted in the warrants we carried out in the South Wales area and at Ashworth Hospital in August 2012.

"However, despite seizing numerous documents and a search of Brady's cell, no such letter has been recovered."

He said the letter may have been destroyed, hidden elsewhere, or it may have been handed to someone else.

"It may simply never have existed in the first place and this has been yet more mind games by Brady," he said.

He added: "Keith still has surviving relatives who deserve to know the truth and Greater Manchester Police will continue to act on any credible evidence to bring this torment to an end."